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Saturday, November 10, 2018

THE MARK OF CAIN

THE
MARK OF CAIN

In a recent
used bookstore foray, I picked up a copy of War
Dogs #4 Body Count, an entry in a 1984 men’s adventure paperback original
series set during the Vietnam war. Having been a collector of men’s adventure
genre novels since my late teens, I was surprised I was unfamiliar
with both the series and the author, Nik Uhernik.

Back home some
quick Internet research revealed Uhernik as a pseudonym for prolific men’s
adventure writer Nicholas Cain. His first, and best remembered, series was the
cult favorite Saigon Commandos,
written as Jonathan Cain in the mid-80. The series ran for 12
titles all published by Zebra Books. One critic referred to the Saigon Commandos
series as the Hill Street Blues of
Vietnam.

*Saigon Commandos is a derogatory term invented by infantrymen during the Vietnam War as a reference to any soldier not on the front lines. However, the
military policemen in Saigon, who found themselves up against snipers, rowdy sappers,
and other hostile local criminals across the Saigon underworld, wore the title
as a badge of honor—proud to be lawmen patrolling what they considered the
toughest beat in the world.*

Cain used
various other pseudonyms for a number of other paperback original men’s
adventure series.These included the first 8 books in the Chopper—1 series as Jack Hawkins (a house name owned by Ivy Books);
3 books in Gold Eagle’s long-running Able
Team series as Dick Stivers (a house name shared by many Gold Eagle authors);
and 4 books in the War Dogs series
(which prompted my line of research) as Nik Uhernik. *One of Cain’s Saigon Commando characters is Private Nick
Uhernik, the son of a diplomat who was born and raised in Saigon, and is very
possibly the genesis for Cain’s Nik Uhernik pseudonym.*

There were 6 books in Cain's urban cop series, Little
Saigon, which were published under his own name, Nicholas Cain. The series focused on serious crimes
perpetuated in the biggest community of Vietnamese immigrants in America.
Located in Orange County in Southern California, Little
Saigon was once a quiet Los Angeles suburb dedicated to prosperity and hard work. However, over the years it became a war zone. Asian crime lords took to terrorizing legitimate businessman
with threats of murder and extortion. Youth gangs in hot cars with Uzis cruise the Bolsa Strip dealing death and destruction in bloody turf disputes.
Outgunned and outnumbered, regular cops are ineffectual. Enter
police Lieutenant Luke Abel, a former MP from Old Saigon’s war torn streets. He
knows the culture, the language, and the people. He also knows how to take the
fight to the Vietnam-style guerilla crime gangs and win.

*Assigned to LAPD’s Anti-Terrorist Division for two years, I was seconded to a federal anti-terrorist task force. I spent a lot of time in
Little Saigon on an investigation into Vietnamese organized crime factions terrorizing the community. The high ranking members of the syndicate all had ties to Operation
Phoenix, a CIA sanctioned special-op in Vietnam that trained South Vietnamese special
forces fighters to become assassins. They would then send them up-river alone
with instructions to return with as many sets of North Vietnamese ears as they
could cut off. When Saigon fell, the CIA managed to get a bunch of these guys
out of Vietnam, but they failed to retrain them with skills useful in a civilian world. The remnants of Operation Phoenix were dumped in
Montreal, Canada, where they quickly reverted to the deadly training they received in Vietnam and began to prey on their own community. They eventually expanded their terror network into America and on to Little Saigon in
California, which had a much sunnier climate than either Montreal or Vietnam.* Interestingly (possibly
only from the perspective of a Men’s Adventure genre groupie) Cain also wrote
the final installment of the Vietnam
Ground Zero series using the pseudonym Robert Baxter. Vietnam Ground Zero was a long running series written by at least
two other authors (Robert Charles Cornett and Kevin Randle) under the house
name Eric Helm. Oddly, this last series entry written by Cain (as Baxter) was
never published as a separate book. Its only appearance was in Heroes Book 1, a strange hybrid omnibus. Each of the 3 books in the Heroes omnibus series contained two or three novels from Gold Eagle’s various
men’s adventure series. All of the included novels were previously published,
except for Cain/Baxter’s Vietnam Ground
Zero entry, Zebra Cube.*For my fellow
fanatics, the Vietnam Ground Zero series
consisted of 27 books (28 if you count Cain/Baxter’s final entry) published
between 1986 and 1990 by Gold Eagle. Between 1988 and 1990, 5 Super Vietnam Ground Zero books (longer
versions of the original series books akin to the Super Bolan entries in Gold Eagle’s Executioner series) were published. Eric Helm was also the house name
used for Scorpion Squad, a 4 book,
Vietnam set, men’s adventure series published by Pinnacle between 1984 and 1985
(prior to the first Vietnam Ground Zero
entry in 1986).*With so many
of Cain’s books set in the Vietnam War, I was interested to find out more about
his background. Checking with the ever reliable Google (sarcasm noted),
there appeared to be conflicting information regarding Cain’s real first
name—was it Jonathan or Nicholas—since he had used both at various times.

Several entries indicated the Saigon
Commandos Jonathan Cain was also the keyboardist for the classic rock band
Journey—responsible for co-composing and playing the piano on Don't Stop Believin' as well as writing Journey’s
hit ballad, Faithfully.

This did not
seem right since no information on Journey’s Jonathan Cain listed any
connection to the writing of at least 30 men’s adventure novels. Still, numerous
links associated with Saigon Commandos
author Jonathan Cain clicked through to information on Journey’s Jonathan Cain.
Even the legitimate, and usually reliable, Fantastic
Fiction website’s bio entry for Saigon
Commando author Jonathan Cain states: Jonathan
Cain is a musician best known as the keyboardist and lyricist for the
world-renowned band Journey. The listing even includes a photo of
Journey’s Jonathan Cain...CLICK HEREIf it’s on
the Internet, it must be true...Maybe not...Futher checking
quickly revealed Jonathan Cain as a pseudonym for Nicholas Cain—whose most
likely connection to Journey was being barraged by their music on his car radio.
The ever more valuable Paperback Warrior
website gave a lukewarm review of Cain’s initial Little Saigon series entry, Abel’s
War (a guy named Cain writing about a character named Able—let’s not go
there), but does give a nod of acknowledgement to Cain stating: His volunteer service time in Vietnam
(despite a high draft number) and as a Colorado state trooper is commendable...CLICK
HERE

Cain apparently
did his research for his Saigon Commandos
series the hard way. In the latter years of the Vietnam War, he served as a US
Army military policeman in Saigon. He later continued his Army career as an MP,
which included tours of duty in Thailand and South Korea. He was honorably discharge
in 1975 with the rank of sergeant. A civilian again, Cain returned to his
hometown in Colorado. He then began a decade long law enforcement career. He
started as a state trooper and later became a police officer in suburban
Thornton, Colorado.Ten years
removed from the war, Cain wrote a non-fiction manuscript entitled Saigon Alley, which was based on his
experiences in Vietnam. The manuscript was rejected by numerous publishers
until it came to the attention of Zebra Books editor, Michael Seidman. Once an MP
himself, Seidman offered Cain a four book contract if he would fictionalize the
experiences in his manuscript and increase the sex and violence—which Zebra
relied on as a selling point for their books. Cain agreed, turning Saigon Alley into the basis for his
fictional Saigon Commandos novels.*Zebra
editor Michael Seidman was at Tor Books when he bought and purchased my first
novel, Citadel Run, and contracted me
for two more.*Starting
publication in 1983, the Saigon Commandos
grew to a series of 12 books and became a cult classic. More than a standard
Vietnam action series, Cain’s first-hand knowledge helped him capture the
essence of being in Saigon during the height of the war.

*At the end of Saigon Commandos #4: Cherry Boy Body Bag, Cain
adds an unusual epilogue. His original contract from Zebra was for four books, so
my guess is Cain had not received a contract for further books by the time he
finished book four. Thinking this would be the last book in the series (it
actually ran for eight more titles), Cain gave some closure to the books with an epilogue covering what would happen to the main characters in the future. As
Cain did himself, the Saigon Commando MPs hired on with various law enforcement
agencies back in the real world. One would commit suicide, another would be killed in the line of duty, and one would join the anti-Communist resistance in Cambodia.
The various Vietnamese policemen (who were secondary characters in the books)
would disappear into reeducation camps after the Communist victory. The leader
of the Saigon Commandos, Ex-Green Beret Mark Stryker, however, remained in Saigon continuing
to resist the Communist takeover of the city he loved.*Being an MP in
a city like Saigon demands far more guys and skills than those to than guard installations or direct traffic. Cain crafts an exotic city full of beautiful women and nonstop
excitement as his collected stories cover all aspects of an MPs duties. In
doing so, he skillfully brings to life a vibrant city inhabited with colorful
and dangerous characters.

The final
three books in the series, known as The
Tet Trilogy, were the culmination of everything Cain had experienced as an
MP and learned as a writer. The trilogy is among the best writing ever—fiction or non-fiction—about the
Vietnam War.*In his Tet trilogy, Cain uses actual transcripts of MP
jeep-to-jeep radio transmissions, taken from official logs, records and
archives, and incorporates them into the punchy dialogue.*

In an
unlikely turn of events for any men’s adventure series, Saigon Commandos #9: Mad Minute, was not only bought by Hollywood
shlockmeister Roger Corman's Concorde Studios, but actually made into the 1988 straight
to video film, Saigon Commandos. It
was released as a feature film in foreign theaters as American Kommandos...CLICK HERE

Written by Thomas
McKelvey Cleaver and directed by Clark Henderson The movie was filmed in the
Phillipenes on a typically miserly Corman budget. Despite this, Saigon Commandos is a decent B-action
movie for those of us who get a kick out of such low-budget fare. The film
starred Richard Young, who would become far better known for his role in the
opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the
Last Crusade a year later.

*Saigon Commandos is a surprisingly decent film, focusing not on
the battles in the Vietnamese jungles, but on the corruption, heroin infested
streets, hidden snipers, and hollow-point killing murders in Saigon. I was
hooked from the opening scene of a Vietnamese band singing House of the Rising
Sun in a strip club. I had low expectations for this film. However, it rose above
those expectations—however slightly—and turned out to be entertaining. If you
can manage to track down a copy, I recommend it for action B-movie fans.*

Cain’s
writing career spanned over thirty book in various men’s adventure and
military adventure paperback original series. While successful by many
standards, and despite Hollywood interest leading to a produced feature film,
Cain had slowly become a victim of the deadly curse of the mid-list writer—the main symptoms being the
inability to breakout of the genre markets, small advances, and rarely, if
ever, a royalty check large enough for a dirty weekend away.

In 1990, Cain
moved on to another act in his career...literally moving on...to Los Angeles,
where he became a private investigator. However, he did not give up his
keyboard completely, writing two investigative manuals, Trick Questions (And Other Trade Secrets of an L.A. County P.I.)
and So You Wanna Be A Private Eye, as
supplements to the courses on investigation he taught at a local continuing
education facility.

The Internet
turns up little information concerning Cain’s personal life, and what can be
found is most often repetitive. However, I did uncovered a strange book
entitled Whatnots! Thirty Fascinating
People Share Their Extraordinary Collections by Eileen Birin. In it, Cain has
his own chapter talking about his book collecting habits and his love for Doc
Savage. Along with Doc Savage, Cain claims Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, and
Joseph Wambaugh as major influences on his writing. He collects all of their
books among many others.